Thirty years of wait and legal battle did not go waste for 34 persons who have now got back legal rights over their properties in view of the land-owner friendly provisions of the newly enacted Right to Fair Compensation in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
The Karnataka High Court, in its recent order, has quashed acquisition of around three-and-a-half acres of land saying State authorities had failed to either deposit compensation amount or take possession of the acquired land even after determination of the compensation amount 20 years ago.
A Division Bench comprising Justice K.L. Manjunath and Justice Ravi Malimath passed the order while allowing the appeals of C. Ramu, Mohammed Ahmedullah Shariff and others, whose plea against acquisition was dismissed by a single-judge bench before the new Act came into force.
The lands were notified for acquisition in 1983 by the State in favour of Geological Survey of India (GSI) for constructing residential quarters for its staff. After several rounds of litigation, the State finally determined the compensation amount in 1993. However, the authorities had neither deposited the compensation in the civil court nor taken possession of the acquired lands till 2004, when it tried to issue notice claimed to have been prepared in 1992, to some land owners.
By excluding duration of interim orders given by the High Court from time to time, the Bench said the lands were not taken over within two years from acquisition in terms of the both old and new legislations on land acquisition. Moreover, the Bench said, the compensation amount was also not paid to the land owners from past 20 years even though the GSI had paid the sum, determined as compensation, to the State authorities.
Declaring that the acquisition proceedings had lapsed in terms of new Act, the court directed State authorities to return the sum to the GSI.
